


Blank Book

by rinskiroo



Series: SWWA February Ficlet Challenge 2019 [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Gen, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 20:58:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17690810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinskiroo/pseuds/rinskiroo
Summary: Rose's hobby is collecting memories, but sometimes things get lost.





	Blank Book

“It’s not here!” Rose cries as she abandons the datapad in her hands and begins tearing through the singular bag of belongings they’d managed to take with them as they fled Hays Minor.

“Shh, Rose.”  Paige tries to settle her down because they’re only on this transport because Paige promised Rose could fix some dilapidated equipment in exchange for a ride.  The pilot could just as easily decide two sad and loud orphans isn’t worth the trouble. “What’s missing?”

“My book!” Rose moans, throwing her hands into the air.  “The whole file is blank!”

Paige blinks, confused.  “Book? File? What is it?”

Rose is crying now--fat tears drip down her red cheeks and her nose sniffles loudly as she tries to reign it all in.  “My pictures!”

Rose is getting to the point of being inconsolable and Paige is still trying to figure out what has her so broken up.  It dawns on her slowly and a weight settles heavily on her chest. “You mean from the holorecorder mom and dad got you for your birthday?”

It wasn’t much, just a decade old budget camera that their parents had bartered for and then their dad fixed into working order.  But Rose loves it and had taken pictures of  _ everything _ .  It’s not the camera, Paige realizes, because Rose has that thing tied on a string in the pocket of her jumper, but the files, the book, is blank.

Paige swallows back her own sudden sadness at having lost even more pieces of their history and envelopes her sister in a fierce hug.  “We’ll take more pictures and make more memories. I promise.” Paige knows it won’t make up for what they’ve lost, nothing ever will, but they can’t get trapped in their grief.

Paige keeps her promise and helps Rose fill up her albums with images of all their new friends.  They still sometimes get sad over the lost pictures of their parents and their old life, but they’re moving forward.

When Rose wakes up on the dusty planet the Resistance is hiding out on after Crait, she is happy to still be breathing, but there are so few people left.  The feeling of loss washes over her anew--her parents, her world, her sister, her friends. And this time, there hadn’t been time to pack even one bag of belongings.

BB-8 sits with her while she quietly recovers and the people are all busy with their various plans.  The droid asks why she’s sad. Is it Paige?

“Yeah, Bee,” she says with a long sigh.  “I think I’m starting to forget what our parents looked like.  I don’t ever want to forget Paige.”

The droid rolls up next to her and she hears the sound of one of his lenses rotating and clicking into place.  A small projection of light filters out in front of her and she sees herself making a silly face with Paige next to her laughing.  The lense clicks again and the image is replaced with one of Paige, Nix, and Finch, the crew of the  _ Cobalt Hammer _ .

As BB-8 clicks through the pictures, image after image, Rose smiles and wipes her face of the tears she can’t seem to control.  “Thank you,” she manages to whisper out. “I thought I’d lost them.”

BB-8 tells her that Paige had loaded backups into the Resistance’s main computer core, which was downloaded before their escape from D’Qar.  There’s also other files, he offers. Ones Paige asked him if he could recover from a damaged data stick.

There’s a tear through the middle of the first image BB-8 shows her, proof of the corrupted data.  But it’s her mother, and father, and Paige, and her. It’s her birthday and they were all together.


End file.
